When UBAD (United Black Association for Development) ruled the streets between 1970 and 1972, I was not a part of the action. I was busy playing football, or being with my buddies, Reginald Jex, who was at that time in the police special unit, or something like that, and his cronies, and people like the legendary Edward “Thor” Middleton, exciting boxer and star footballer, discovering all the discos and bars in the city, and the “speak-easies,” where one could get a drink at any time of the early morning.
I suppose I inherited my almost phobic dislike of fools, and of dishonest persons, from my maternal grandfather, Donald Usher, a black man, who will live forever in my memory for cussing out some British soldiers who dared to stop under his verandah at #21 Regent Street West, during the curfew called by the PUP government during the upheavals caused by the Webster Proposals in 1968.
The blasted British soldiers dared to tell Donald Usher to get off his verandah. His own verandah, mind you. Well, when Donald Usher finished educating those soldiers to the fact that it was his house, and he would be damned if he would leave his verandah, and other statements, accompanied with fist-shaking, to the effect that they could go to hell, the soldiers retreated to their vehicles, and drove off.
I’m proud to be a grandson of that black man, Donald Usher.
I mention these things – my early lifestyle, and my grandfather – to make two points. First, I was not a disciple of the UBAD movement, and second, I cannot abide liars and thieves.
My contact with UBAD and its leaders was minimal. When I married my wife, sister of the owner and publisher of Amandala, Evan X Hyde, of course my horizons were broadened, although not immediately.
I did not become the editor of the nation’s most influential newspaper, the Amandala, because I was the publisher’s brother-in-law. This happened when the publisher and the former editor, Glenn Tillett, parted ways. The staff was small, and I was the assistant editor, and really, in a pinch, there was no one else.
I had gone to Kremandala not to work at the newspaper, but to work at the television station after Radio KREM had come on air in 1989. The late Corozal genius and entrepreneur, Rodolfo Silva, who had put the radio station on air, was poised to bring television to Kremandala.
He died prematurely, and tragically, and that is how I ended up, to make a long story short, at Amandala.
I say all this to say that my contact with UBAD, through the Kremandala organization, was gradual, very gradual. I am no crusader, or firebrand, or anything of the sort. I am simply a person who cannot abide fools or thieves.
Naturally, however, over the years, I have had, so to speak, a front-row seat in observing the child of UBAD, Amandala, and especially, the man called Evan X Hyde, who I regard, in a professional manner, my employer.
Amandala will be 38 years old come next Monday, August 13. I will be so bold as to state that despite the manifest wishes of its opponents, over the decades since its birth, UBAD, and its ideals, still live, and will always live, so long as there is an Amandala, and an Evan X Hyde.
People of this country, be honest. The PUP began as a great organization, or perhaps a great idea. It has now become an extremely corrupt organization.
The UDP have had two chances at greatness – two terms in office. They only lasted one term each time. Since the purpose of this article is not the UDP, I will not delve into the reasons for their defeats – I will leave that as “food for thought” for the party faithful.
If politics did not horribly rule Belize, politicians and civic leaders would line up to offer their congratulations to Amandala, and the icon that is Evan X Hyde. They have not done so.
The conclusion that I have come to, in almost eleven years as editor of this newspaper, and as probably 4-5 years as assistant editor, is that I can understand why Amandala and Evan X Hyde’s enemies seek to destroy UBAD, and all it has stood for, and Amandala, and all it stands for. As for UBAD, they would rewrite history, if they could, to say that UBAD never existed.
They, all of them, are liars, whores of foreign powers, perverts, hypocrites and thieves. They know that in the national scheme of things, Amandala (and by extension, Kremandala) is more relevant, more needed, more important, than either of the two national parties, the UDP and the PUP.
Politicians do not like to hear these things. They want to be admired, or perhaps, feared. They do not want competition for national attention.
“Back a di zinc fence” deals with the common people, with love, and caring, and we put our money where our mouth is. As with the birth of UBAD, so it is with Amandala’s 38th anniversary. We are what the politicians and their minions are not, and have been so for 38 years. We have been honest with the people, and our history is there to prove it. – 38 years.
Happy birthday, Amandala.